I have about 500 board feet of white pine lumber that has been cut and air dried for about 10 years. I have put the lumber into a barn on our new farm and powderpost beetles have gotten into it. How can I stop them from eating the boards?
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Replies
Put the lumber in plastic bags and set off aerosol insect bombs inside. Leave them closed up for a while.
I have a neighbor who lives behind me, a retired chemical engineer, we have had pine borers come through the area over the years and kill some of our many pine trees. He drives a nail about 6 feet up in the tree and takes the spark plug out of his lawnmower (to make it easier to pull) hooks a lead to the spark plug wire and the other end to the nail and pulls it through a few times. This is supposed to kill the borers, whether it does or not I don't know, but He hasn't lost any trees yet. Perhaps you can devise a way to electrocute the little pest.
God Bless
les
Do a search on timbor and Boracare...........I don't think in would be PPB in pine...But the Timbor and boracare should take care of the what ever kind of critters you have....Dale
several good points made so far, a couple not quite on - - one thing I have observed is that in barns, PPB activity is generally contained in the lowest level - I believe this is because the lower level has higher humidity (higher moisture content in the wood) and more moderate temperatures - higher in the building the high summer temperatures and lower moisture conditions results in an enviroment too harsh for the pest to thrive - so if the infestation is small, maybe move your lumber up to the top level and let it get good and hot and dry - do remember that there are larvae in the wood now that will emerge this next spring - heat is the only way to kill them at this point - if you have access to a kiln they could be run thu, that would take care of it -
Check the barn for existing major structural damage to it!
Both pine borers (come in different sizes around the country) and powder post beetles may be controlled immediately with chlordane. Don't breath it or get it on your skin, and you shouldn't breath the dust when you process that wood. Strong measures are called for, or that wood will quickly become useless. Remove the wood to a place where you can stack it on plastic, spray it all over, and close up the stack. Leave it for several weeks. Then you may restack it in a safe place for storage. It will stink for a while, and then again as you begin to use it. When the beetles emerge in their normal cycle, they will die. Their friends will also perish when they try to rejoin them in the stack.
The other chemicals mentioned are prohibitively expensive, detract from the future use of the wood, and the processing dust is every bit as harmfull.
If you do not "terminate" the beetles, and assume they are gone due to "apparent inactivity", you may be surprised when, several years from now, those little piles of sawdust appear beneath your project, signaling they have decided to emerge from their dormancy, to head for the nearest soource of light, and eventually spread to other woody items within your home.
Good Luck,
John in middle Tennessee
Most of these beetle pests spend up to 7 years inside the timber until they pupate and hatch out as mature beetles.
While they are in the timber they are practically unkillable because the only things that will penetrate the timber deep enough to reach them are micro-waves and radiation so prevention focuses on coating the timber with a poison that kills them when they emerge and prevents the female beetle laying more eggs in the timber.
Whatever you use has to be long-lasting because beetles will be hatching from the timber for years yet. Things like aerosol bombs are useless, you need a specific insecticide.
The female lays her eggs in the end grain so you'll need to paint all cut ends with the insecticide -- and the timber will need treating again when you've machined it.
IanDG
I check on Timbor a few weeks ago and it was $67.67/25#s. BTW chlordane has been off the market since the mid 1980's..
You might want to check out these other sites:
http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef616.htm
http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/SPEC/pick-timbor1.htm
Good luck to you,
Dale
Edited 1/24/2003 11:49:50 PM ET by Dale
"Orthochlor" brand chlordane remains available at most home centers, with directions thereon for treating various infestations. 95% Chlordane was restricted to licensed commercial applicators and registered aerial applicators some time ago, but the garden variety is quite strong enough for our purposes.
Woodworkers must remain vigilant to be certain that in infested material, in it's finished form, the last step before applying a finish, is to mop the article down with it's last, fresh coat of chlordane, allowing it to dry on the surface. The larvae inside the wood must "munch" a bit of the chemical as they emerge, lest the cycle continue.
I have received wooden planes with "inactive minor old beetle damage", which, when placed in a plastic bag with a moth ball and a tissue soaked in chlordane, would within two weeks come alive with thirty or more emerging beetles. Some of them so healthy that they eat on out of the bag. OOPS! Here in middle Tennessee, they are especially fond of maple, beech, hickory and Walnut sapwood. Let's see now, that could include wooden handscrews, workbenches, tool handles, old tool chests, ...you name it. Articles the size of molding planes may be microwaved (remove plane blades and don't forget to zap the wedge) .... listen for the popping sounds as the moisture within them vaporizes! This is the same sound you hear if you decide to just use the infested wood as firewood and skip the chemical treatment. A choice we each have to make independently.
Good Luck whatever you decide,
John
coble,
I don't have the books in front of me at the moment, but I think something on the order of 160° F at the center of the board for about an hour will do the trick on most any critter you may have. Can you get them into a local kiln for a treatment?
I doubt the little buggers are actually powder post beetles. Pine has a pretty low level of starch, a nutrient PPB's like and woods like oak, hickory and ash are far more appealing to these beetle larva than pine.
What are the actual signs you observe indicating infestation?...hole size...grain size in the frass, etc.
Lee
Furniture Carver
Coble, I'm comin' into this late, but am hoping you'll consider my contribution. Please don't use clorodane. It's an extreme measure that's not needed in this situation. Here's a website for you to visit.
http://www.powderpostbeetles.com/#third
As mentioned above, Boracare would work in your situation. It penetrates about 4" into the wood and kills exisitng and future-hatching larvae. This page is a long one, but look for BORACARE in big blue letters.
A note of caution: I took a little more time this morning to read about this product. It certainly has toxicities when inhaled or contacted with skin.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 1/28/2003 12:43:02 PM ET by forestgirl
Good and hot and dry . . . . David and Goldhiller got it right. A kiln is what you need.
Why is it that wormy chestnut brings a premium price, but nobody wants wormy pine ? I had about 6,000 board feet of cherry, red oak, white oak and white pine that turned out to be infested with powderpost beetles. I had the entire truckload professionally fumigated. They used an agricultural product called Phostoxin. I had run into it before in the grain business ( not wood grain, grain like corn or wheat ) This stuff is very, very toxic, and it off-gases, and is invisible. But if I had 500 board feet, I'd find a kiln.
Good luck. Greg.
Borates are a salt and will penentrate wood IF AND ONLY IF there is sufficient moisture that will allow the diffusion process to occur. Sufficient moisture implies that the wood is above the fiber saturation point (so there is free water in the cell lumens). If the wood is below 25% (FSP), the extant water is bound to the cellulose and hemicelluloses, and therein not available to dissolve the borates.
Borates also do not fix themselves to the wood (or at were not able to do so in my last readings of research on wood preservatives). Because they do not fix/permanently bond, borates will leach.
Borates also interfer with adhesive bonding (decreasing joint strength) and can cause problems in finishing.
Here's the page with technical information. Knock yourself out.
http://www.nisuscorp.com/pdfs/pretreat%20technical%20bulletin.pdf
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
So I visited the site and read the information contained therein. Nothing new.
It did contain the following statement:
So tell me -- if this borate is water soluble and penetrates by diffusion, how is it supposed to penetrate if there is no available free water in the wood?
The answer is that without free water (ie green lumber), there is only minimal penetration, at best. It is one of the fundamental properties of borate preservatives that they are most effective when the wood is dip treated in its green state and then subsequently dried.
Surface treatments of wood preservatives (any and all wood preservatives) are less effective than preservative treatments that impregnate the wood. This is Wood Science 101 and has been confirmed in a zillion studies. Spraying borates on the surface of dry wood is only a surface treatment.
In a similar number of studies, it has also been confirmed that the primary and therein recommended treatments for powderpost beetle are either fumigants (eg methyl bromide) or heat (as part of a dry kiln schedule -- [125 degrees F wood core temperature for 48 hours for 4/4 lumber]). Everything else is more or less non-effective.
Every time the question of powderpost beetle comes up, all sorts of individuals come out of the woodwork with all sorts of solutions. The funny (and tiring from my perspective) thing is that these home-brewed treatments continue to be, for the most part, ineffective, expensive, a waste of time and potentially dangerous. I have said this a hundred times and I will probably have to say it a thousand more because some individuals want to believe what they want to believe without any consideration of the facts (research results).
Forest girl -- you recently initiated a thread about advertising. You were rightfully questioning the purpose and intent of business marketing strategies regarding product sales promotion; recognize that even "technical" literature can be deceptive. The deception, in this case, is one of omission unless one is perceptive enough to know the implication of the above cited sentence.
"you recently initiated a thread about advertising. You were rightfully questioning the purpose and intent of business marketing strategies regarding product sales promotion; "
I did?? Hmmmmm, must have been in my sleep. Don't remember starting such a thread.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
" Hmmmmm, must have been in my sleep"Maybe you were sleep-walking and dreaming you were Splintie?IanDG
Oops!
My apology!
As much as I'd love to have Splintie's talents, I'll pass if it requires living in the frozen north! LOL!!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I was just wondering what the prefered treatment of PPB in a barn's timbers that can't be kiln dried or heated enough to kill them. I'm concerned about my barn. Is eliminating the humidity the only solution? I've heard painting the beams is effective. Any help would be apprecitated.
Here is a remedy that was used to clear beetle from a castle in UK where timber treatment was impossible/impractical.The beetles hatch in Spring and fly toward the light to mate and lay their eggs -- typically at the eaves or around window frames. They have timber preferences -- top of the list apparently is Willow and what was done was that blocks of willow were placed throughout the building at every window and in the roof space.In the summer these were collected and burned and fresh blocks placed and gradually fresh infestations were prevented from replacing the larvae that hatched.I'm not suggesting this for your barn but the principle is the same -- you have to stop the female beetle laying her eggs because it is impractical to kill the larvae while they are deep inside the timber.IanDG
Somehow you are going to have to get a professional evaluation of the damage vis a vis structural intergrity. The people qualified to do this are called engineers.
Remember the adults exit hole may be in heartwood but the larva are feeding on sapwood which is where most of the serious damage will occur.
Entire structures can be fumigated. They cover 'em with plastic and then let loose the chemicals. EVERYTHING enclosed in that tent will be killed -- mice, bats, pigeons, spiders, owls, etc.
To provide lasting protection, a subsequent application treatment will be required.
What state do you live in???
This is Kelvin with the PPB in my barn timbers. I live in Mid michigan. What do you think about painting? If that stops the females from laying the eggs again it seems like it would stop the cycle? There is fresh sawdust constantly. There are 4 other historic timber framed barns near mine that all have problems. it would be nice if a more economical response like painting were to be helpful. Tenting and fumigating would be very expensive i imagine. All the pest control people around here are just snake oil salesman trying to get you hooked on their yearly "preventive" maintence plan. Would drying out the basement be the most effective with paint? I do agree they are only active in the lower level high humidity areas. I've been advised to try spray chlordane when the bugs are emerging in the spring, before they can relay eggs. Effective? Thanks for the help!
Kelvin,
You seem to be going around and around with this, some of the post are good and some are well.............To satisfy your question, why don't you call an entomologist (insect person) at one of the Mich. universities and talk with them...Dale
I wholly agree with you Dale about contacting the Extension entymologist (probably at Michigan State University) and as another source of reference, it might be worthwhile to contact some sort of Historic Preservation Society that probably exists but under god knows what name. A call to the State Historical Society might give you a "link".
Another source would obviously be the Forest Products Lab in Madison WI.
I really like the idea (whoever posted it) of bait blocks from some preferred wood. Willow was mentioned but ash sapwood seems to also really attract. It sounded like a very simple solution because it is cheap and therein it would allow one to change them seasonally. If this information was published, I would appreciate the reference.
It was published as an article in "Country Life" in the late '50sGood luck with your search!Incidentally, the accompanying illustrations showed the best carved oak panelling I've ever seen.I was asked to do some restoration work to a marquetry/parquetry floor in one of the gold-rush era mansions in Melbourne by the National Trust and the sub-base was Baltic pine which was riddled by furniture beetle. I recommended the method to them -- I don't know how it panned out but it was the only alternative they had -- spraying was out of the question (not that I think it does any good anyway!)IanDG
One strategy to consider is collecting the adults with a shop vac as they emerge - I have observed that the beetles emerge over a week to 10 days, here in northern IN around may 15 - I've cleared up a minor infestation in a 1840's log cabin with this method - cheap and no enviromental concerns -
Chemical-wise, Lorsban used to be labeled for PPB control (adults), label changed signifigantly a couple of years ago, I don't know if it's still allowed - you could check the Malathion label also - it has been labeled for a wide range of uses, including fly control around livestock and I would expect controlling for flies at the time of beetle emergence to kill beetle adults also - disclaimer: read and follow label directions -
Expect to repeat any strategy over the course of 5 years or so to knock the infestation down to negligible levels - good luck -
KELVINPOTTER,
Painting is a method of preventing reinfestation but will do nothing to rid your structure of PPB larvae within the timbers now. The larvae emerge, pupate and live very short adult lives in which they breed and lay eggs. These eggs are laid within the pores of unfinished wood similar to the wood in which they spent their larval stage. If you seal off the pores the eggs won't get laid in your timbers.
Get a professional exterminator to look at it. It's possible that you have no real problem as most PPB's do not reinfest dried woods. Some PPB's do reinfest dried wood so it's important to get the opinion of a professional versed in these insects. It's also possible that another insect is responsible for the symptoms you're seeing.
LeeLee Grindinger
Furniture Carver
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